Nine States Support Game Industry Against California
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
It would be if that was what it's about.FinalFreak16 said:
What this law plans on doing is to create a government run ratings board to determine if any game set before it is "ultra-violent" then ban their sale to minors. This means it has nothing to do with M rated games or the ESRB at all. It will no longer be a self-regulated medium, the ESRB ratings will be meaningless.
This means that it's up to some government lackeys (probably with an agenda or two) to decide what is banned and what is not, it doesn't stop at M rated games. What if the "ultra-violent video game" bar is set at cartoon violence like Ratchet and Clank or Street Fighter and not at Halo or Killzone? What if the bar is as low as the Road Runner dropping an anvil on Wile E. Coyote's head? The big box stores will no longer carry the games deemed "ultra-violent" as a $1000 fine per copy sold adds up quickly and lowers their bottom line. If the "ultra-violence" bar is set where I think it will be set (mid-low T under the ESRB) then we're looking at a grim future indeed.
This will have extreme overarching effects all over the world, not just in the States. The US is the biggest market and if they say no, then the trickle effect to everywhere else is inevitable. I'm Canadian and I'm worried about this law as it will, eventually, effect me and the games I may like to play.
I'm glad to see that some red states are in the "freedom and small government eff yeah!" mood rather than "super Christian Jesus ban everything that doesn't have Bible verses in it!" mood.
Ok... Let's get one thing straight... It's not exactly the fact that you CAN do some of the violent and raunchy goodness in video games, It's that you CHOOSE to... If someone puts it into a game, it doesn't mean that you need to do it... So what if they let you get any and every STD known to man, So what if they let you beat the crap out of some old or homeless people to get some spare change for that new gun in the store that you want... If you choose to do it, than do it, and to everyone offended by the game's graphic content, "TO Frickin' BAD!!!", as my dad would say if I ever got offended at anything, which believe me, I don't... Just because you don't want it in a video game isn't going to stop people from making the game, or the customers from getting the game. So many children play violent video games. Who cares? You let them get the game, or at least took them to the store where they had someone purchase said game, and now that they're playing it, you get upset. Violent videogames are a good thing, in my opinion, and I'm sure that's the opinion of at least half of the escapist.
So let them be, just be a little more strict on your kids... My dad's pretty cool, actually. He gets me the game that I want, as long as I'm paying for it. I'm only sixteen, and I have every gory masterpiece ever made except for things on the PS3.
So let them be, just be a little more strict on your kids... My dad's pretty cool, actually. He gets me the game that I want, as long as I'm paying for it. I'm only sixteen, and I have every gory masterpiece ever made except for things on the PS3.
Because the sale of violent content to minors is ALREADY restricted. It is a completely worthless and reactionary law based entirely on ignorance and fear.Jesus Phish said:
Wait, wait, wait... Let me go over a few of those names.
Aren't those states the ones with the (mostly undeserved) reputation for being backwards compared to most of the others? Does no one else see the irony that California (known almost worldwide as being in support of gay marriage) is on the side of preventing new ideas, while these states are for them (though yes, there are a few "backwards states" on Cali's side)?
Aren't those states the ones with the (mostly undeserved) reputation for being backwards compared to most of the others? Does no one else see the irony that California (known almost worldwide as being in support of gay marriage) is on the side of preventing new ideas, while these states are for them (though yes, there are a few "backwards states" on Cali's side)?
You are kind of what they are relying on to make this issue, this case is not really about the stated issue of "M" rated games being sold to minors.Jesus Phish said:
To explain it as simply as I can, in the US our "right to free speech" is one of our central freedoms and a cornerstone to our entire society. The goverment is not supposed to have the abillity at all to engage in censorship and be able to decide what the people can hear/see/read and what they cannot.
The ratings systems as they exist now are a voluntary system run by the industries (games, movies, etc...) themselves. Ratings are not decided by the goverment and have no direct legal backing behind them. They are the industry as a whole deciding to mark their products based on what kind of content is in them so people can make desicians on what to expose themselves to.
Other than perhaps a fine being leveled against a retailer by a product producer via some kind of agreed on contract (ie if you sell our products you agree to uphold these standards, and if you don't, you aree to pay us X amount of money) there is no real penelty involved for violating the ratings. ESRB ratings are not "legal".
The goverment wants to make it an actual crime to sell sexual and/or violent material to minors this way. In order to do this, the goverment would effectively be taking upon itself the authority to both set the ratings, decide what is and is not acceptable, and then enforce those policies with the police and US legal system.
The goverment being able to set standards like this, and then enforce them criminally is one of the things the goverment is not supposed to do. By allowing them to do this, it directly contridict's the right to free speech, and even if well intentioned here, it opens the door for the goverment to regulate media/information in general.
Fundementally what this comes down to is the goverment coming in and saying "you can't handle your free speech, so we're taking it away from you". Or on the civil end of things people saying "Please Uncle Sam, I can't handle my own right to free speech, and engage in actual parenting! Please take away this freedom and responsibility and run it for me!".
The cornerstone of the entire thing is that the authority the goverment would need for such laws to exist and be enforced directly violates central principles of the US. Also with the way our system works, once a precedent is established it opens doors for it to be used for anything. The goverment could use this ruling and being allowed to police information here to defend it's right to do similar things in other situations... that's just how things work, our system doesn't do "single exceptions" that remain single exceptions forever. It's a system of absolutes.... the way those exceptions snowball is exactly why our legal system is so complicated and such a giant mess. What a law says is not nessicarly what it means anymore due to precedent (overall... not just here, check it out some time).
Good intentions aside, one has to ask if "protecting the children from video games" because their parents don't want to parent, is worth giving up our right to free speech, and protection from goverment regulation.
Understand, for all failures in the ESRB and other similar systems, as things stand now there is no requirement that things have to be rated. It's all voluntary, a service for the costumers when you get down to it. That's why the current system exists and we maintain our freedom. When the goverment comes in, slams it's foot down, and says "it's a law", it's something else entirely.
What's more for all questions about the industry voluntarily regulating itself as a service, that's definatly the lesser evil (and giving us more freedom since it's not nessicary) than goverment officials doing it. The goverment should not be deciding what media we get to consume at all.
At any rate, I'm rambling, and the situation is more complicated than that overall.
The whole thing is basically an attack on the right to free speech, and it's something that has been brewing for a while. The whole "protecting minors from video games" is simply where the factions of the goverment making the power grab chose to pull the trigger because they feel it gives them the best chances through "good intentions" so to speak.
This is especially big for those of us into video gaming because the shot is being fired into our back yard (so to speak), but make no mistakes, in the end this isn't actually about the video games, their ratings, and kids. Rather it's about the goverment's right to regulate media.
People sitting here going "I fail to see what is so bad about them wanting to keep M rated games out of the hands of kids" is exactly why they chose to pull the trigger here, on this issue. If it was something like an unexplained "Well I don't think people should be able to criticize the goverment on the Internet, that should be a crime" there would be no support for it, people would freak. Doing things this way, it's possible to garner support from people who don't see the whole issue... the whole "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" thing.
But there's already the ERSB, foregoing that at least three independent parent-focused rating websites, and foregoing that they can just LOOK AT THE DAMN GAME. Hell, even then most stores have the decency to have a policy basically mirroring this law.SenseOfTumour said:
Even in the hypothetical situation where all this First Amendment stuff didn't apply, it's still a stupidly unnecessary and counter productive idea; parents have an excuse to be lazy, and thus minors try to (and will) get their hands on MORE violent games, due to the taboo surrounding them. There is nothing positive about the concept.
OP; There is, however, plenty of positive value here. How nice it feels to have the words "artistic merit" and "videogames" put together so well by someone so significant.
They already prohibit sales of M rated games to minors, unless said minor has a parent or guardian, much like the policies regarding R rated movies.Jesus Phish said:
I can only assume that that is either not yet legally required, or that they may increase it to prohibit sales to minors or adults who plan to give it to minors, like alcohol or drugs...
I'm not too sure myself, but once 17, as I will become later this year, it's not a problem.
